Overview

There are two components to measuring the success of a training event the effectiveness of the workshop itself and the benefit to the business. It is possible to hold a highly popular workshop with virtually no business benefit. On the other hand, it is less likely but still possible to hold a very unpopular workshop with good business results.

The business reason or situation that caused the request for training is key to the measurement of effectiveness after the programme has been completed. For this reason it is critical that you establish the learning objectives with your sponsor before any design begins. The workshops included in this book have learning objectives, but if you are customizing the material, you need to customize the learning objectives as well.

Once the business reason is clear and the needs are understood, the learning objectives can be created by clearly stating the audience and the behaviour you will be able to observe during the training event. The objectives provide direction for course developer, facilitator and learner. They are the core around which the entire learning experience is built and they provide your contract with your sponsor.

Creating learning objectives can be time-consuming. To simplify the process, here is a pared-down version of more academic approaches to creating objectives. In this section, you will learn how to create good learning objectives by specifying the audience, behaviour, condition and degree.

• Audience (A): Who will be learning? To whom is this objective geared? (See...